Lindblad Tourism for Tomorrow
The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) has a prestigious award to give in its Tourism for Tomorrow Environment Award, and Lindblad Expeditions is among three finalists.

The Tourism for Tomorrow Awards program celebrates business leadership that works toward a more sustainable future by educating and inspiring governments, travellers and other tourism businesses. The finalists for this award were chosen after a rigorous judging process of applications from 62 countries across all continents for five categories: community, destination, environment, innovation and people.

The other two Environment Award finalists, whose organizations and companies achieved environmental best practice through biodiversity conservation, protection of natural habitats, addressing climate change and green operations, are Alcatraz Cruises, U.S. and Wilderness Safaris, South Africa / Botswana.

The next phase for the selection of a winner is on-site evaluation of each finalist by international sustainable tourism experts, assessing the organizations and the business practices they have highlighted in their application. Following the evaluations, the winner is chosen by a panel of leading authorities in sustainability.

The winners will be announced during the Tourism for Tomorrow Awards Ceremony at the 16th WTTC Global Summit in Dallas, Texas on April 7.

Lindblad Expeditions, founded by Lars-Eric Lindblad as Lindblad Travel in 1958. Lindblad was born in 1927 near Stockholm, Sweden and immigrated to the United States in 1951, eventually becoming an American citizen; he was president and CEO of his company, based in Westport, Connecticut, for more than 30 years. It became the first travel company to bring civilians to some of the most exotic parts of the world. Later, under his son Sven Lindblad’s stewardship, the company embarked on developing innovative and educational travel expeditions fueled by the younger Lindblad’s passion for helping to preserve natural resources and become involved in conservation efforts. In 2004, Lindblad Expeditions joined forces with National Geographic to expand its expedition travel. From offices in New York and Seattle the company now operates its own fleet of ten ships for expeditions and adventures covering all seven continents.

For more information, see www.expeditions.com and www.wttc.org/tourism-for-tomorrow-awards

Archive image of the company founder Lars-Eric Lindblad (1927-1994) in China. Lindblad introduced cruises along the coast of China as early as 1978.